zimfinalpush
17 April 2007
FT: There was an important regional summit in Dar es Salaam and you have been given a mandate to mediate on a solution to this crisis. How are you intending to find a solution and how is your role different from four years ago when you were given a similar role?
President Mbeki: Well, the first thing I would like to say is that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit said there are three major areas of concern to the region about Zimbabwe. One of them is the political situation; second is the economic situation; and the third is Zimbabwe's international relations. It said that the region had to address all three matters.
The Summit decided that with regard to the political issues, the critical intervention that it needs to make is to encourage the ruling party and the opposition to enter into the necessary dialogue to find a solution to those political problems.
And secondly, with regard to the economic ones, it directed the Secretariat of SADC to make a proper assessment of the economic challenges that Zimbabwe faces, so that as the region we could then say what it is that we think needs to be done with regard to the economy.
And thirdly, with regard to the matter of international relations, the feeling of the region was that sanctions against Zimbabwe are not helping to solve the problem and that it would be better that the rest of the world acted in support of what the region would try to contribute to find a solution, in the first instance to the political problems and secondly the economic ones.
So, that is basically the framework. In that context they asked us to continue to engage the Zimbabweans, the opposition and the ruling party, to encourage them to engage in what was described as a dialogue to find these political solutions.
Unfortunately the Summit met a day ahead of the meeting of the Central Committee of Zanu PF. That matter was noted, because everybody knew that one of the things that the Central Committee would address, would be: whether there should be a reconciliation of the timing of the parliamentary and presidential elections; and that if they confirmed that position then the next question would be when those elections would be, whether the reconciliation is in 2008, which is the year selected for the presidential elections, or in 2010, which is the year for the parliamentary elections. So, that was something of a limitation. I am sure that if the Summit knew this decision that was then taken on Friday, that both elections are next year, perhaps the kind of political intervention visualised by the region would have been more specific. Because, obviously, those elections are very important. They are very critical to the challenge of arriving at a solution to the political challenges.
But as I say, unfortunately we met a day before that Central Committee meeting. So the charge we have is to facilitate this dialogue to find a solution to the problems. We have never had any mandate from anybody to intervene in this matter. It was entirely a matter of our being a neighbour and not being able to stand aside when all these problems manifest themselves in Zimbabwe. This is actually the first time that we have been mandated by anybody to do anything like this. So this time we are acting for the region and, as I say, we have engaged Zimbabwe over the years because that could not be avoided.
Let me say first of all that we had already been in contact, as you would expect, with both the opposition and Zanu PF. Last week Friday, the secretaries general of the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had a long discussion with our people about their own view as to what needs to happen in Zimbabwe, in particular with regard to the resolution of the political conflicts. At the end of that discussion they said they would go back to Harare and then give us a document which would reflect the official, combined view of both factions of the MDC, which would then open the way for us to interact with Zanu PF, because that is what they wanted us to do. This was before the Dar-es-Salaam Summit. They are in the process of finalising that document and when it is finalised we will interact with Zanu PF, depending on what the MDC says, that this is what they say.
That meeting was before this decision about elections in 2008. But they had an expectation that this would be the decision and therefore that the principal challenge that would face all Zimbabweans, all these political groups, would be: what should be done between now and those elections to create a climate in which you do, indeed, have free and fair elections whose outcome would not be contested by anybody, because they would have been truly free and fair. This would be a major challenge, because normally the Zimbabweans hold their elections, whether parliamentary or presidential, in the month of March and if they stick to that, we have 11 months before these combined elections take place.
This climate that we are talking about, which we believe is correct, would have to be created during that period. Quite what that would mean, we will await the finalisation of this document. But I am quite certain from previous interactions with the MDC that they will raise questions about certain provisions in the Constitution about certain legislation like legislation affecting the media, legislation affecting the holding of public meetings. I would imagine that they would raise those sorts of things. And those are some of the things that need to be addressed as part of the package of measures that would be necessary to create that climate.
We will get that document during this week, finalised, and we will immediately engage Zanu PF to say, it is necessary to respond to all of these things. We may come to a stage later, I do not know, but we very well may come to a stage later when they will have to sit together to agree on whatever needs to be agreed. As I say, this would focus principally, given that there will be those elections in 2008, on what do they do to create a climate conducive to the holding of free and fair elections. So that is what we have got to encourage them to do.
FT: Mr. President, at what point does Mr Mugabe and his actions begin to actually cause damage to you as the principal leader of the region?
President Mbeki: No, you see, the region would not have said, there are political problems in Zimbabwe, let us do something about that.
I mean, the region believes they have political problems and, indeed, even in the course of the meeting people said, quite openly, they were very disturbed to see these pictures of people beaten up, as this is a manifestation of the problem. So, let us do something about it. That is why the region says, let us deal with these political challenges. The region believes, in that context, that the only way to deal with these problems, the only way that is actually going to produce results, is if we encourage the Zimbabwean political leadership to engage one another. That is the belief of the region and I think the region is correct. And so that is what we must do now. Whether this succeeds or not is up to the Zimbabwean leadership. It is they who have got to agree about the future of Zimbabwe.
To the extent that they do not agree and therefore the conflict continues and maybe violence escalates, which the region is very much against, that may be damaging, but what can you do about it except to say that we do not like it.
We have intervened officially, formally, as a region, because we do not like it, and we think that this is the route to go. But none of us in the region has got any power to force the Zimbabweans to agree. We will persuade them, insist, whatever, but in the end, like all of these situations? you know the situation the Northern Ireland; an enormous effort has gone into that process for a very long time, but it is recently that we have got?
FT: That is very interesting that you should raise that matter, because the difference was that in Northern Ireland, I mean it has been very, very difficult. But there has been someone babysitting the process for more than 10 years. But there has not really anyone been babysitting the Zimbabweans.
President Mbeki: Maybe I should not have mentioned that, because to draw parallels is going to get us into a lot of trouble. The British government has certain constitutional responsibilities toward Northern Ireland, which none of us have toward Zimbabwe. There are certain powers that the British government would have towards Northern Ireland, which none of us in the region has. So you would have a particular kind of leverage in that situation in Northern Ireland, which we would not have here. To that extent, you cannot transpose the two situations.
I should have cited our own situation here. Nobody could do anything about the situation in South Africa, unless South Africans decided to resolve the matter. That would be the situation in Zimbabwe. But it is quite clear from what took place in Dar-es-Salaam at that SADC Summit, that the region is really quite keen that this matter should be resolved. Such is the level of interdependence in the region, that inevitably negative developments in one country will affect the whole region, as would positive developments. So, I think the best we could do is to hope that everything works.
FT: I do sometimes sense though that Mr Mugabe is a bit of a trial for you?
President Mbeki: The situation in Zimbabwe is a very unhappy one. It is really very unhappy. We have been engaged with the Zimbabweans for a very long time. Historically, the first liberation movement to emerge in Zimbabwe was the African National Congress. It is directly out of here and a lot of that leadership came out of the South African National Congress. Robert Mugabe was a student at the University of Fort Hare here, in his youth, and was involved in the Youth League of the African National Congress.
We have got a long history with Zimbabwe. Part of what inspired the thinking here with regard to our own situation was the position they took in 1980. A lot of opinion in South Africa at the time, certainly reflected in the media then, was that you were going to get a very negative approach to the white minority in Zimbabwe at independence. A very strong view. And the first thing that they said was: we want national reconciliation; yes, we have had a war, we have had the Selous Scouts, and the Grey Scouts; all this war but we want national reconciliation; we confirm General Walls as the continuing Commander of the Zimbabwean Defence Force; we confirm Ken Flower as the chief of intelligence. They were all Smith's people. I am saying that it had an impact here when our turn came; it encouraged the adoption of a similar position.
We have got these relations with Zimbabwe, and so when things go wrong in Zimbabwe, naturally, even from that point of view, we will feel that. I am not talking now about refugees coming here and so on, just the sense of marching in step.
FT: But that history is so interesting as you describe it and you know the man very well, you know the history. Do you believe that President Mugabe will ever peacefully renounce power?
President Mbeki: I think so, yes. President Mugabe and the leadership of Zanu PF believe that they are running a democratic country, a democratic system. That is why you have an elected opposition and have by-elections and that is why it is possible for the MDC in local government elections to win Harare and Bulawayo and the municipal governments in both of these big cities are MDC. You know that, and that it is in the interest of Zimbabwe to maintain a democratic system, which means that people must on a regular, prescribed basis, subject themselves to elections. And, indeed, even in Dar-es-Salaam this is one of the points that President Mugabe said, that since independence in 1980, we have without fail held elections as scheduled. This is what they would say. And therefore, a notion that there could be an attempt to hold on to power outside of the allowed political processes, I don't think they would do that. You might question whether indeed, these elections are generally free and fair and all of that.
So the position that we all took as a region is that therefore let us get the Zimbabweans talking to make sure that they do indeed create those circumstances so that you do have elections that are genuinely free and fair. The matter of holding regular elections as scheduled is not in dispute. So, with regard to giving up power, they will say, sure, we shall lose elections, as we lost elections in municipal elections: the mayor of Harare is not Zanu PF; the Mayor of Bulawayo is not Zanu PF. They are all MDC people. Members of parliament in the bulk of Matabeleland are not Zanu PF, they are MDC, because our candidates were defeated. That is what they will say. They would contest a view that the Zanu PF continues in power through other than democratic means.
ANC Leadership
FT: Well, I would like to turn to South Africa and your own position as President and Head of the ANC. Are you going to run again?
President Mbeki: Let me tell you what the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC decided. The National Executive Committee of the ANC decided last year that the principal task that faces us in this period up to when the ANC holds its elective conference, which is in December this year, is to look at the entirety of our policy framework to review it and see if it is correct in all its elements, with regard to the economy, social issues and all that. So that by the time we get to national conference, we are able to take correct decisions.
This is partly based on the view that this conference at the end of December, will be the last ANC national conference before the ANC celebrates its centenary in January 2012. We must be able to say, as we celebrate that centenary, that we have got our policies right, we have got our implementation procedures right, we are making progress with regard to the pursuit of these goals that the ANC has pursued for a hundred years.
These matters of policy, direction, instruments to implement, and so on, are critically important. Therefore, let us not divert ourselves by discussing these leadership things. That will be done. The ANC has got its normal processes which will kick in sometime later this year, and those are normal for nomination of people to leadership positions. Those processes are that the branches of the ANC do the nominations and the nominations go up to the provinces and the provinces pass them on to national, and national will present them to the conference. It is a set procedure. We will come to that, then. But if we engage in that issue now and people start campaigning, they are not going to address the central question.
FT: It seems to me that some of them are campaigning already.
President Mbeki: Sure. I know some people are campaigning, but I think as the leadership of the ANC, we really have to focus on the membership of the ANC, critically on these matters. Many millions of people in this country depend on what the government will do with regard to changing their lives for the better. Government is a critical player - whether people get a house, go to school, create openings for people to get a job, all of these things. Those are the questions that the population asks. We carry out a programme here from President downwards; it is called an Imbizo process. Imbizo means, what is an Imbizo ?in English?
Unknown speaker: Traditionally a meeting that would have been called at the chief's kraal.
President Mbeki: Yes, it is a general meeting. The chief would call a meeting of the village or the area of which he is the chief and say, let us all come and talk. So we had carry out a programme like that, all the time, I am saying from the President down. We interact with the people or the time. You have thousands of people who come from a distance. We are doing that programme now. It is focused on municipalities. You go to a particular municipality and you stay for two days. You meet the municipal council, you meet the municipal managers, you meet the people. What are the problems here? And what to do the people want? What are the demands? You go there and listen.
At no point in the Imbizos that I do, nobody ever, ever says, who is going to be the new president of the ANC. They don't. They say, President, our children are matriculating from school and are sitting at home because they have no money to go to university and they have no jobs. Do something. This police station of ours here, they do not respond when we call them. When we call them and say, there is a problem here, there is crime being committed here, they do not come. Do something.
Those are the issues people would want us to address, and we have to respond. The African National Congress has to respond. And it really cannot allow itself to believe that what is of principal concern is who becomes the ANC president. It cannot be. We are an old organisation. We are 95 years old. And the ANC hasn't lived as long as it has because it has been preoccupied about who becomes leader. That is not the reason and we cannot do it now. I am President of the African National Congress and I have to be the first person to respect decisions taken by the leadership. So what will happen to the presidency of the ANC is something that will emerge in the course of the processes in which the ANC will engage. But, I have to insist on that, because I have to insist on it for other people too. I cannot say, this is what Thabo Mbeki will do or not to, but others, the rest of you, please do not say anything about this.
FT: But as a political scientist, what do you think of the idea of two centres of power? Someone, who is the president of the ANC. Someone different who is the President of South Africa.
President Mbeki: I do not think it is a problem. You know, we had this when I was selected as president of the ANC in 1997, and Nelson Mandela was president of the republic until 1999. That is the only period we had in the last 13 years of our liberation, where you had that kind of phenomenon that I am talking about and there was no problem.
And there could not have been a problem, because the manner in which we have functioned since we came into government in 1994 is, for instance, in January the ANC national executive committee holds a three day meeting to which it invites its allies. That meeting discusses essentially what the government ought to be doing for the year, what are the principal areas of focus. A week or so later, the Cabinet has a similar three day meeting, and that is government, at which then it will say, well, the ruling party has decided as follows ? it is called a Lekgotla. So the Cabinet will say, this is what NEC of the ANC decided in terms of our programme for the year, so these are the priorities we have got to translate into an actual programme. It must be reflected in the budget on which the government will start working on in April. And that is how it works. That would happen whether you had different presidents, one for the ANC and one for the government. That is how the system would work at and that is how it worked in this period between in 1997 and 1999.
FT: So, technically it is possible. Let me just explain some of the context to this question, Mr President. I think many people outside, as well as inside South Africa would say that one of the great successes, your successes and your government's, has been a courageous commitment to macroeconomic stability. And therefore, foreign investors, financial markets are concerned about this succession. So that is why they want some reassurance about how this transition will play out and your role.
President Mbeki: The thing that I think I have noticed is that there is insufficient understanding of how the system works.
Before the 1994 elections we adopted a document that the ANC and its allies called the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP). That was our campaign platform for 1994 and when we came into government it got translated into a government White Paper, it was adopted by parliament and all that. Now that RDP document, among other things, said we have got to address this issue of very unhealthy macroeconomic balances in the economy: the budget deficit; the growing public debt; high interest rates, you know, all of these things. That has to be addressed.
When the government adopted what became known as the GEAR - growth, employment and redistribution ? that was an implementation of that decision that we create the correct economic framework, which the government then did.
There was quite a lot of debate about that within our own ranks and indeed a lot of speculation when we were going into conference in 1997, that the membership would reject this GEAR, because it meant belt tightening and because of the demands that government must spend more, borrow more because to meet the needs of the people you needed to do that and cannot take this route. We kept saying no, unless the ANC turns its back on its own policy, this cannot be a problem. And, indeed, the 1997 conference of the ANC confirmed that the decision that we had taken with regard to this matter was correct. So the controversy, the big fight that had been expected by some people at the 1997 National Conference of the ANC did not occur, because all that government was doing was to implement a policy that had been decided, not only by the ANC but by the trade unions and everybody as party to that.
I am saying that I get a sense that probably some of these things are not properly understood. It is like, if I may say this for instance, some people saying the policy of national reconciliation belongs uniquely to Nelson Mandela. Each time Nelson Mandela has said: no, but, where do you get that from - this is the policy of the ANC and all of us are obliged and must do this. People do not listen - they said this was uniquely Mandela. It is not true.
So, I am certain that whatever happens this year, 2007, at the ANC conference, or in 2009 at the general elections, this is fundamental. The ANC will not change these fundamental positions. So I would not have any fear myself that you would get a departure from these fundamental positions which are critically important in terms of meeting the very objectives that the ANC sets. I really would not have any fear about that.
Economy
FT: Given that confidence, are you ready to remove foreign exchange controls?
President Mbeki: Well, I think that the position we have taken so far is right. Yes, indeed, we must arrive at a point that foreign exchange controls disappear. But we must take it step by step.
You see, there has been a phenomenon which has been observed even by some businesspeople here - I am talking about the foreign businesspeople - some of whom have said that one of the peculiarities that puzzle them is that of some of the major companies holding large reserves of cash. Abnormally large, so they say. I am not a businessperson but they speak of abnormally large reserves of cash which they do not see in their own countries and elsewhere, and ask the question: but why? Because it kind of suggests that you want to keep some nest egg, which you can ferret out of the country quickly, if something goes wrong. This may be a wrong conclusion, but I have heard foreign businesspeople raise this thing.
So, we, as government certainly, remain concerned that perhaps the transition out of the apartheid years is not in that sense finalised. So you continue to have a situation where some people might still be somewhat uncertain as to what might happen tomorrow and you might say that if tomorrow you say, okay, all of these foreign exchange controls have gone, because of that residue of uncertainty about the future they might say, okay, let us take as much out of the country as we can. I must say it may very well be that we are misreading the situation, that we are being too conservative. That is possible. But I know that there is that kind of sense of uncertainty.
FT: It is an insurance policy.
President Mbeki: In short, I think that is the correct way to put it. But I must say, though, that as opposed to that instinct towards an insurance policy, in practice the corporate sector here has for a number of years been much bigger investors in the South African economy than the public sector. In truth, that is the fact of the matter, which in itself says, we are here to stay, we are not going anywhere, that is why we are putting more money into the economy. So, that would counterbalance that instinct towards some kind of insurance policy. The reality has been saying that these private investors have all the necessary confidence here. They have been putting more money into the economy, as I say, for a number of years at a much higher rate than the state did. The state is catching up now, the public sector. So, in the end, sure, we must get to the point where these foreign exchange controls are gone. But I still think it is correct to say, let's take it step by step.
FT: I have one more question and then I would like my colleague to go on. The performance of the South African economy over the last ten years is impressive, the growth and the macroeconomic stability. But if you look at some of your emerging market competitors, five percent annual growth is not quite so good. How do you get to 7, 8, 9 percent growth, which is actually necessary to start making inroads into unemployment?
President Mbeki: What you are saying is correct. Of course one of the things that we have to be aware of is that South Africa is not India, just in terms of the size of the country, the population, the economy and so on, or China, or even Brazil. So, we have to respond bearing in mind that issue of size.
You are quite right, we need to achieve these high rates rights of growth. So that is why we decided that it is necessary to make certain interventions. We have attended to the macroeconomic issues for many years and they have produced a positive result.
We need a better focus, for instance, on industrial policy to say which sectors of the South African economy we believe should give us these higher rates of growth. One of those mentioned most often is, of course, tourism. All right, if we say tourism is one of them, then we must answer the question: what do we do to increase the size of that particular sector of the economy? Are there enough airline seats between South Africa and Europe, and South Africa and the Far East, and the US and what do we do to address that? What about the rest of the tourism infrastructure, the hospitality infrastructure generally. So you make the necessary interventions of whatever kind.
We have got to address these issues, which have shown up just because of the rate of growth of the economy. As I was saying the other day, the ports cannot cope, the railway system, the roads and so on, water, electricity. Those are infrastructure things. So let us do something about that because they are critical to achieving those high rates of growth.
So that is the process that we are engaged in now. We have got to increase investment by the public sector, address problems like underspending in terms of capital budgets by the state sector. We still have this phenomenon where billions of Rands are returned to the national treasury at the end of the financial year, because the government does not have capacity to build roads and so on that are very necessary to achieve those high rates of growth.
So that is what we are doing, to have a microeconomic focus: industrial policy questions, infrastructure development questions; this critically important issue of skills of all sorts across the board. We have to do all of these things which produce high rates of growth. Indeed, we must address matters like the perception which arises from what is happening in the country, that such are the levels of crime that it is unsafe to come to South Africa, and so on. So we have got to address this totality of matters.
FT: That is important for tourism.
President Mbeki: It is important for tourism. You are absolutely correct.
FT: In the sense that crime is high and that people talk about it on the television.
President Mbeki: Sure. Yes. That has a negative impact.
It is a microeconomic focus, as it were, or a micro social focus that we are trying to engage now, so that we do indeed create a possibility for these higher rates of growth.
Telkom, the biggest telecommunications company, which is part owner of the only undersea broadband cable that we have along the Atlantic coast, just recently responded on this matter that we have been raising with them. We have been saying: we are talking about call centres and business process outsourcing and so on; we are on the time zone with Western Europe, more or less; and this country is basically English-speaking and even the English accent that people have here is in many respects easier to understand than the accent of somebody else in the East. And yet, why are we not attracting these call centres? It is the costs of telecommunications.
FT: I mean, the costs of telecommunications in South Africa are unbelievably high.
President Mbeki: Absolutely.
FT: I mean, why, why have you not managed to crack this, because that will give a tremendous fillip to growth.
President Mbeki: If you take that undersea cable, they are charging so many hundreds percent more per unit of time than is being charged elsewhere in the world. So we say to Telkom, we cannot be saying here is a sector of the economy which can attract a lot of people, and indeed, many companies around the world, in some instances led by South African companies which have developed big operations outside. South Africa's Old Mutual, listed on the London Stock Exchange, say we want to do this call centre here. This is their country, they know the people, they know the language and so on, but the cost is so high. So we say to Telkom: you have to do something about that. And, quite recently they said, okay, now we understand. So, I mean, there are many interventions that are?
FT: So you are putting, just to be clear, Mr President, you are putting some serious pressure now, personally, on Telkom to reduce the astronomically high?
President Mbeki: Yes, of course, we are doing that. Of course, there is now a new telecoms company is expected sometime later this year to go operational which would provide competition. We have also taken a decision to build a new and much bigger fibre optic cable along the West Coast, much, much bigger than the one that exists now with much, much greater capacity that would drastically reduce costs. So there are a number of interventions that we are making, including putting the pressure on Telkom to say, this is a level of profiteering that is not right.
FT: Profiteering?
President Mbeki: It is, I mean, really, the charges are just phenomenal. But, of course, it is also because it has got limited capacity. The planning, when the cable was laid, did not take into account the rate of increase in terms of the demand for traffic on the cable. So that puts this consortium that owns the cable, which includes Telkom, in an advantage, it is a seller's market.
China-Africa relationship
FT 2: China is playing an increasingly important and dynamic role in Africa at the moment and you have been an enthusiastic supporter of many of Beijing's initiatives. But I believe, right at the end of last year, you warned that there was a risk of a new colonial relationship. I wonder if you could explain what you meant by that? And does that remain a risk now?
President Mbeki: The point I was making is that it is quite easy to understand what China would need from the African continent with regard to its own economy. It will be raw materials, oil, and a market for manufactured goods. It is not difficult to understand that, and it is perfectly legitimate, there is nothing wrong with that. The Chinese economy is growing, it requires raw materials and so on, and so where do we get them in Africa? It is correct, we need more fuel and there are a number of countries that produce oil and so on, so we are going to get oil concessions and that is also understandable. And Chinese industry is growing and we are all members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and it is a global market, so, we sell our goods in Africa as elsewhere in the world. I am saying that all of that is obvious.
The challenge is that you could then, indeed, develop a relationship between China and the African continent which in reality isn?t different from the relationship that developed between Africa and the former colonising powers, where, again, Africa remains an exporter of raw materials and an importer of manufactured goods. So, the point that we have made is that we believe that it really would be in China's interest to say that it needs to construct its relationship with the African continent in a manner that addresses that. I am sure it would not be in the long-term interest of China, which would continue to depend on these African resources for a very long time, to see the emergence of any sense of hostility, animosity, tension between itself and the African continent.
Therefore, China has to say, sure, we will see what needs of the Chinese economy can be met by us accessing raw materials, for instance, on the African continent. That is fine but we must also say: we also want to participate in the process of the development of the African continent, so that you do not reproduce that colonial relationship. So ask the questions: are Chinese companies investing in Africa? There is a huge Chinese market, a market already demanding all sorts of things. Cannot you produce some of those things in Africa and export them into China? Of course you can. So these are the things that I believe that China would have to address. Is there anything that China can do to assist in terms of the development project, as we define it ourselves as the African continent?
You cannot just depend on the market, because the market will say: China needs oil; China needs coal; China needs whatever, and Africa has got all these things in abundance. And we go there and get them, and the more we develop the Chinese economy, the larger the manufacturing is, the more we need global markets - sell it to the Africans which indeed might very well destroy whatever infant industries are trying to develop on the continent. That is what the market would do. It is not because there are evil Chinese who are sitting in Beijing plotting something bad. That is what objectively would happen.
China surely must be interested in a more stable, non-antagonistic relationship with the African continent precisely because of its own needs ? and therefore has to say: in our own interest, as China, it is necessary that we participate in the process of development of the African continent.
Now, the fortunate situation is that when we had this meeting, the China-Africa Summit in Beijing, this matter was raised by the Chinese themselves, officially, to say: it is in the common interest that there should be balanced development between China and Africa, and therefore the Chinese themselves must attend to these matters of Chinese investment, assistance with regard to skills development, focus on agriculture, all sorts of things like this consistent with our own development, a process like that defined in NEPAD. So it is a matter that both China and ourselves have got to watch all the time, so that you do not have a kind of slippage with regard ensuring that that mobilises development.
Zimbabwe
FT 2: Can I just very quickly return to some Zimbabwe. President Mugabe, this weekend I gather, claimed that you share the same stance as he did about Britain's role on the continent. He was heard saying, I think something like, President Mbeki believes as I do, that Britain has a neo-colonialist agenda, or something. I mean, first is, what is your responses to that? He is very good at playing this sort of game and he has done it before. And, as you get into your role as mediator, it strikes me and possibly other people that the obvious obstacle is going to be President Mugabe, because he of all the people involved, would on paper be the least interested in, in reaching mediation and having talks. Is there a stage that you have to go beyond walking softly? I mean, we all know the famous Teddy Roosevelt saying about walking softly and carrying a big stick. Forgive the long question -just your answer to his charge. And, you know, what would you consider doing if walking softly continues to go nowhere?
President Mbeki: You see, we have been dealing with this Zimbabwe question for some time. So I think we are pretty familiar with these challenges.
I have said this thing before and unfortunately you get the wrong messages from people in Zimbabwe. For instance, you know in the past when we engaged the Zimbabweans, there was an agreement that there were certain constitutional challenges the country faced in the context of ensuring that you have addressed all the issues that were contentious with regard to a democratic system, and therefore this matter of constitutional amendments had to be addressed.
So, we say fine, we agree. Then, how do we do that? So both the Zanu PF and the MDC said, let us engage in what they insisted would be described as informal talks rather than negotiations to address these constitutional matters.
So we said, fine, and indeed they did for some time, and completed that process, ahead of the 2005 parliamentary elections. Both the Zanu PF and the MDC each gave me a copy of the completed draft of the constitution. I have still got them, initialled on every page.
So, fine, now we have done this, what next? Unfortunately the parliamentary elections then caught up with them. So they then got involved in the normal campaigning and so on and that matter got put on the back burner.
I am mentioning this to say that because we have been dealing with the Zimbabwean political leadership for some time, I think we have some sense of what it is that even they, together, have thought needed to be done. You see, even decisions like the establishment of a Senate, is in that draft constitution, it is agreed. An amendment of the Constitution in order to set up an independent electoral commission, which was done, it's in that draft constitution. A number of things like that. Even this issue of the harmonisation of the presidential and parliamentary elections, also there.
So, what I am trying to say is, we have a possibility to say, in our own judgment, this particular player in Zimbabwe is obstructing the possibility of finding a political settlement. And in this case, because we are now mandated by SADC, we go back to SADC to say, we are not moving because these ones are obstructing the process, many of whose elements we are familiar with. And then, of course, the region must take a decision as to what to do in an instance like that. So that is what would happen if, indeed, you had a situation where we came to the determination that given our own understanding of what needs to happen in Zimbabwe to create this situation and climate and all of that, this one is acting in a way, or the other one is acting in a way, which is intended to deny an outcome like that. We can say that we are not moving because these ones are serving as an obstacle. And then, the region must take a decision as to what to do in a situation of that kind.
[With regard to the question about British colonialism], the discussion was, you have these political problems in Zimbabwe, how does the region respond to that? And the point that was made that it was not about British colonialism only, or colonialism mainly. The point that was made was that, as a region, we would not ever support any proposition about regime change. That is not an option for us whatever other people may think in the rest of the world. The only option we have is to make sure that the Zimbabwean political leadership agrees on the steps that it needs to take to get the country out of its problems. That was the only point made with regard to that.
Racial prejudice
FT: About 11 years ago I sat with you and you said these words, which have stuck with me: "the creation of a non-racial society is a painful process." - I think this was 1996 - and something like "I say (very foolishly perhaps) things I should not, then the debate begins about what is right and what is wrong, and your nice deputy president ceases to be a nice deputy president." I was talking about how everyone had been adoring you and then you had been getting some criticism in the press because of issues you had been speaking about. In recent months, people, in the South African media in particular, have been suggesting that the nice president has been the nasty president, has been saying nasty things and so on. And some people suggest that may be the role of the president to be more all-embracing and less pointed than in some of his utterances. I just wonder what you feel about that.
President Mbeki: Well, it is true that on occasion, not every day I raise issues which I think that the country needs to discuss.
More recently I was saying that there is a serious problem of crime in the country. That is not in dispute and we have to address this problem. The government has got to do what it has to do with regard to this critically important matter and engage the population in that process of crime combating and crime prevention.
We have got to do that, but what then also happens is that you then have particular public communication about this issue (which is serious and one is not debating that issue) which actually is driven by a problem that we have had in this country for a long time, of white fears, fear of the black majority. It was the very reason for the establishment of the apartheid system. The people who built the apartheid system were saying, we did all of this to try and build a wall around ourselves. Because here we are sitting on this continent, surrounded by black hordes and we do not know what they are going to do. So we needed to protect ourselves, whether it is prohibiting sexual relations between black and white, delineating residential areas, this is black, this is white. This all had to do with the fear that one day we will be swamped: they will just come and devour us.
So it would seem to me that some of the communication that you get around this question of crime is driven still by this notion of fear. You have the phenomenon in this country that was very specifically expressed in the past, when you had quite a serious problem of the killing of farmers because of their isolated homesteads. The criminals would go there, rob the people and then kill people, farmers in the process. And the view was put out that these were the black people revenging on the white people, because we did so many bad things to them during the years of apartheid and before. It is that fear, therefore this incidence of crime is not just crime; these black hordes are coming at us.
So that was what I was saying, that we need to discuss that, focused on this matter, and I may very well be a wrong about this. What I am quite sure of, as of now, is a persisting manifestation of those white fears amongst some of our population, which impacts on the way they think, given the specific example, which I actually cited in that article in ANC Today.
A young black family moves into one of the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, white suburbs, historically white. And on the street there is only one other black family, which they find there living on that street. After a while this other black family which had been there for some time come visiting the new arrivals. We introduce ourselves, welcome to our street and all that. Fine. The person who told me the story was actually the person involved. He did not tell me whether they had a drink of whisky or gin or tea or whatever, but no doubt, they had something of that kind?
[The visitor tells the new arrival that one of the white neighbours and his family were very concerned and uneasy that he and his family have moved into the neighbourhood, and had inquired from him:] "Do you know these new arrivals, these other black people?"?"No, we do not know them."?"My family is feeling a sense of unease at these new arrivals."?"Why?"?"How do we know they are kosher? How do we know they are not criminals?"
So, this other one says, "This is what they say." So I say to them, "But why such a question?"
It is this phenomenon which I am talking about. They are black. Until they prove that they are not criminals it is safer to assume that they are criminals. How do we know that they are kosher?
So in the end, fortunately, this fellow who was posing the question, then goes visiting these people that he is not sure of whether they are kosher or not. And then a discussion ensues. And then he says, but why do not you people come home for dinner, because you need to talk to my wife and my children because of the things that I have learned in this hour and a half of discussion that I did not know about South Africa, about my setting, the white population confined in our little spaces.
The point I am making is that you have this person who literally thinks, and whose family thinks, that it is safer to assume that because they are black they are likely to be criminals, until, like this other family that has lived on the street with us for some time, they prove that they are not.
I am raising these questions to say that if South Africa wants to move forward in this process of reconciliation and so on, we have got to address those things. We have got to confront those issues, because you can then live under this sort of benign delusion, simply because we all of us will celebrate when the South African cricket has beaten Australia?We know we will all celebrate nicely and there is a great feeling, like when the FIFA executive said that 2010 will be in South Africa. There was a big celebration and the country united behind the celebration.
I am saying that you can live under the delusion that that actually manifests the totality of the reality in South Africa. It does not. It is a difficult question to discuss. The issue of racism and racial prejudice is very, very difficult to discuss. It is difficult to discuss the history of apartheid - many people have made the observation that it is very, very difficult to find anybody in South Africa who ever supported apartheid: because everybody was opposed to that; it was against our will and so on. I am saying that it is difficult to discuss history, and more difficult to talk about now, today, even simple things.
I think in that same article I reported on something that is in the media. One of our big banks is faced with serious problems about this. A young intern, fresh out of university, a young black fellow, 22 years old, goes and works there in some apprenticeship system. After a while he writes a letter to his general manager to say that racism in the bank here is so prevalent: I cannot proceed; I am not going to take this other fellow's job who is white, I have really come for exposure, for experience, for training, then I leave; but there is a big problem in the bank. Once he says this and the matter gets published, you get a response from other young black professionals in the bank to say: this has been happening for many years. Yet you can pretend that these things are not there, and yet you have a level of dissatisfaction of the black population which you cannot ignore.
I believe that it would be irresponsible for the President of the Republic of South Africa not to raise these real issues. And, of course, part of the response will be: no, no, that is not the task of the President. The task of the President is to make sure that he is loved by everybody, and therefore he cannot say this. I think it is incorrect.
I have said things about the way in which black people who have come into government from 1994 buy into an old culture of corruption that was prevalent during the apartheid years within the state machinery, come in comfortably and buy into this. It is wrong. We were coming into government with a new value system and yet you find this manifestation. Sure, I get accused from the black side that this fellow is raising this thing for political purposes because I want to chop some people up, sticking the label 'corrupt' on them. But I think it will be quite incorrect for the President of South Africa not to raise issues like that.
But then of course you must be ready to accept that it will not necessarily make you popular with everybody. But, what do you do?
HIV and AIDS
FT: There is, Mr President, another sensitive issue which you do, raise on occasion on the connection to AIDS and you as the HIV virus. In the last couple of years, there has been a marked shift in the government's position, spending, the debate on AIDS. Are you responsible for that?
President Mbeki: Well, the current policy that the government is implementing, in fact, quite old.
Already in the 90s, when we launched what led up to the South African National AIDS Council, you can trace the formal comprehensive South African government policy from then. And, as today, we decided then that the deputy president would lead that campaign which I did when I was deputy president. So it has continued like that ever since. Later, we decided that, rather than determine that this is government policy and implement it, we needed to put out a formal document. So, the 2000-2005 comprehensive policy on AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases was issued. So it is actually old policy.
What happened is that I said: the reports from the scientific world are that there is a very severe and escalating impact of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, and from what I have read, it is assuming particular, distinct characteristics, which, for instance, were atypical of how this phenomenon had developed in the States. This meant that we must look at what it is that results in all of this, specific to our country. Let us look at everything and respond to that, because it would be irresponsible if it is said, as it was said, that you have this rapidly worsening problem and we as the government and the political leadership of this country do not respond in an appropriate manner to a rapidly worsening problem.
So, we had a look at everything, because it is a serious problem. I spent time trying to study it, to understand it. Your medical documents will say: acquired immune deficiency syndrome, that is AIDS, which means that you have got this challenge of immune deficiency. All right, what causes immune deficiency? HIV? All right, is that all that causes immune deficiency? And your medical textbooks would say no, there are other things that will cause acquired immune deficiency. There is also a genetic immune deficiency, a different phenomenon. There would be other things.
So, I say, all right, in which case let us respond comprehensively to everything that will cause immune deficiency, including HIV. That is when you get this story that I have denied the connection. And nobody has ever shown me where I did deny it. They say it, but you say where? When? They cannot, because it was never said, because I never did. But what I said, and I am sure it is in the medical textbooks, there are many things that cause immune deficiency and you will find therefore in the South African HIV and AIDS programme, that it will say that part of what we have got to do is to make sure that our health infrastructure, our health system is able to deal adequately with all of the illnesses that are a consequence of AIDS. Whether it is TB or meningitis or whatever, which are in the medical literature. The medical system must be able to respond to those. The medical system, and not only the medical system but the totality of government policy, must be able to address this matter of immune deficiency from whatever it arises.
That is what you find in the policy, it derives from an understanding, it's not a complicated thing. I am not a medical person, but it is not complicated. If you read a textbook it will tell you, these are the things, for instance, on the African continent that would contribute to immune deficiency: the various tropical diseases, which because of poor health infrastructure, poor nutrition, general levels of poverty, don't get treated; syphilis, untreated or not properly treated (which as I hear is a big problem, when it is treated and the symptoms disappear, but, in fact, it is not cured and incubates there) that will impact on the immune system. So you have got to deal with these things.
That is what I said. That is what I insist upon. We cannot, as a government, say: ignore other health conditions and just attend to one. It cannot be right. You have got to attend to the matter of HIV, absolutely, absolutely, but you have got to attend to these other matters.
So that is all. But you know, I was listening to the radio yesterday and somebody phones in on one of these telephone programmes: oh, we know the President, we know he is a denialist, like he denied that there is a connection between HIV and AIDS. What can I do? Because indeed, as I say, when you ask them when people say that, well, when did he say it???
FT: Well, you have set the record straight today.
President Mbeki: I have done it many times. But, you know, but I am really?
FT: Do you think you are wilfully misunderstood?
President Mbeki: I don't know. I really don't know. It might have been bad communication. It might have been that we were raising questions in a situation when there was a particular understanding that had developed in society, and so once you say something else, it looks like you are challenging the established truth. It may be.
It is actually a very simple matter. I am sure you have the textbook that I have got here. I must return it to the owner, I have had it now for a number of years. I said to a doctor, give me a textbook that deals with this problem of immune deficiency, I would like to understand it. It is a textbook written by Professor Coovadia who teaches at the medical school of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It describes this phenomenon and what it is medically that would cause acquired immune deficiency. That is where I learned about this other immune deficiency, which is genetic. And he says these are the things that would contribute to the weakening and destruction of the immune system, and so, as a medical doctor, we have to respond to all of these. It makes sense. It makes absolutely good sense to respond to all of these things.
It does not mean that, because Professor Coovadia says that there are other things that cause immune deficiency, that he is saying that HIV doesn't cause immune deficiency. It doesn't mean that at all. But I am saying that in the instance that this is what people might have been taught, and then, suddenly, you say, but there are other things, it may very well be that they conclude that this constitutes a denial of what they believe is truthful knowledge that they have.
Iran
FT: I would like just to ask you about South Africa's position on Iran, where you have taken quite an interest in the position, which others in Britain and the United States think is a very pressing one. Could you just perhaps explain to us your point?
President Mbeki: South Africa is one of the permanent members of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As a result we have like all the other members had to deal with the issue of Iran.
The position that we have taken with regard to this is, one, that it is critically important that Iran should not develop nuclear weapons. And that the necessary interventions need to be made by the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that, indeed, that does not happen, in the context of any nuclear generation of power or research or whatever, in Iran. That the non-proliferation objectives must be respected.
But secondly, we have said, that it is also important to respect the fact that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Treaty spells out the rights and obligations of signatories to the Treaty, and therefore that we cannot deny Iran the rights due to it as a signatory of the NPT.
Therefore we have got to act on both of these, and critically important is that Iran must co-operate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, because this is the only body with all of the expertise and all of that, which has the capacity to maintain the oversight that will ensure that the non-proliferation regime is respected. And so, indeed, part of what we discussed with the Iranians is that the director general of the IAEA continues to say that, despite the fact that we have got no evidence that there has been any diversion of enriched uranium to military purposes, nevertheless there are certain questions that Iran has not answered. And we keep saying to them, you have to answer that. You have got to co-operate fully with the IAEA
The third consideration, we have been saying, is that here you have an extremely volatile region of the world, where Iran is: with problems in Palestine and Israel; in Lebanon; in Iraq. Surely it should be in the interest of everybody that everything should be done not to escalate conflict in this region. Therefore, whatever the problems are, and the suspicions and beliefs that attach to Iran's nuclear programme, we need to do everything possible to make sure that that dispute does not further escalate conflict in the region. Because, in truth we've discussed this thing with everybody, you do not want an Iran that is in conflict with other countries of the world, that plays a negative role with regard to the resolution of the Iraq problem. It will not help. That would hold true of Lebanon, that would hold true of Palestine. So, you cannot ring fence issues about nuclear power, nuclear technology in Iran and isolate them from what else is happening in that region. You cannot think that we can have almighty battles about these matters that have got to do with nuclear technology, and really shout and scream and that it will not affect the rest of the region. It cannot be true.
So, that is really basically the position that we have taken.
I must also say, our sense of Iran and the Iranians is that people have a sense of national pride. Why do you want to take away our rights guaranteed by the NPT? Why do you want to stop research on nuclear technology being done in Iran on a scale no different from similar research done by US universities? It is very easy for that to escalate into: "As a matter of national pride, we must stand up to these people who want to deny us that progress."
So, in the end we are saying that we got these three matters that we believe really are of fundamental importance: Non-proliferation; respect for international law, by all of us; and doing something not to escalate this very, very disastrous conflict.
FT: Do you think sanctions are escalating it?
President Mbeki: We have been party to the unanimous resolution of the Security Council adopted recently, which indeed kind of strengthens that sanctions regime, but we have got to be sensitive to the fact that you have got to measure whether that produces the outcome that you want, not only with the matter of non-proliferation but also with regard to these other matters in the region, which you cannot disengage, isolate, ring fence, build a Chinese wall, and believe that you can have a big fight about these things that won't have implications for the rest.
I know there is a lot of concern about plans that Iran might have to develop nuclear weapons which arises from positions that Iran took in the past when in fact it did not disclose things to the IAEA. And therefore the conclusion that the reason that they are refusing to do it is because they are hiding something - I can understand that. Nevertheless I think that we still have an obligation to move. I saw that Javier Solana said last week, I think, that he would resume his discussions with Ali Larijani, the chief negotiator from the Iranian side on these issues and I really do hope that they work. A solution must be found.
FT: But that brings us back to where we started, but a different country.
Thank you very much Mr President.
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